The role of slavery at American colleges and universities has been a recent focus of historical investigation and controversy. Enslaved Africans labored to build institutions of higher learning in the United States, and the slave economy was involved in funding many universities. Enslaved persons were used to build academic buildings and residential halls. Though slavery has often been seen as a uniquely Southern institution, colleges and universities in Northern states benefited from the labor of slaves. The economics of slavery brought some slave owners great wealth, enabling them to become major donors to fledgling colleges.
Until the American Civil War (1861–1865), slavery as an institution was legal and many colleges and universities utilized enslaved people and benefited from the slavocracy. In some cases, enslaved persons were sold by university administrators to generate capital, notably Georgetown University, a Catholic institution.Swarns, Rachel L. The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold To Build the American Catholic Church. New York: Random House In some parts of the nation it was also not uncommon for wealthy students to bring an enslaved person with them to college. Ending almost 250 years of slavocracy did not end white supremacy, structural racism, or other forms of oppression at American colleges and the legacy of slavery still persists in many establishments.
In 2004, Ira Berlin observed that the study of slavery at universities can be controversial and can lead to tense debates. "Accompanied by the charge that the interpreters have said too much (why do you dwell upon it?) or too little (why can't you face the truth?)." He contends that by reckoning with slavery, “Americans—white and black—can have a past that is both memorable and, at last, a past.”
In 2006, Brown University became the first university to publish a report detailing its ties to slavery. Over the following decades, a number of American colleges and universities have made efforts to research, address, and teach about their historical connections to slavery. In 2014, a number of institutions led by the University of Virginia established Universities Studying Slavery (USS), an informal working group and later consortium dedicated to investigating institutional histories as they relate to slavery or racism. Efforts and calls to address historical connections to slavery and enduring racism at American universities were renewed in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests.
Brown University A number of Brown University's founders and early administrators owned slaves. Among them were Stephen Hopkins, Brown's first chancellor; and James Manning, the college's first president.
The Brown family The Brown family, the university's namesake, were instrumental in the establishment and endowment of the college. They owned slaves and participated in the slave trade, investing in two slaving voyages (1736 and 1759). Compared to fellow members of Rhode Island's elite mercantile class, the Browns were not major slave traders. According to historian Joanne Melish, "many Providence residents held more slaves than John Brown."
The family's relationship with slavery was neither monolithic nor constant. In 1773, Moses Brown experienced an emotional and spiritual crisis which led to his conversion to Quakerism. At that time, Moses, who had previously enslaved six people, renounced chattel slavery. Moses freed his slaves the same year, writing:
Over the following years, Moses emerged as a prominent abolitionist and began an anti-slavery crusade. These views clashed with those of his brother, John, who defend the practice, leading to a period of vocal public debate between the two. John Brown continued to participate in the international slave trade into the 1790s, following its federal abolition. For this violation, John was tried in federal court, making him the first person charged under the law.
Brown's oldest building, University Hall, maintains a number of connections to slavery. Prominent Newport merchant and slave trader Aaron Lopez donated timber to the building project while the company of fellow slave trader Nicholas Brown Sr. led the construction. The workforce involved in the construction of the building was diverse, reflecting the ethnic and social admixture of colonial Providence's population. Slaves, free people of color, indigenous people, and white skilled and unskilled laborers worked to erect the structure.
'Slavery and Justice Report'
In 2003, then-university president Ruth Simmons launched a steering committee to research Brown’s eighteenth-century ties to slavery. In October 2006, the committee released a report documenting its findings.
Entitled Slavery and Justice, the document detailed ways in which the university benefited, both directly and indirectly, from the transatlantic slave trade and the labour of enslaved people. The report included seven recommendations for how the university should address this legacy.
Brown has since implemented several of these recommendations, including the establishment of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice and the creation of a $10 million permanent endowment for Providence Public Schools.
Brown's Slavery and Justice report was among the first major efforts by an American university to examine its historical ties to slavery and encouraged similar initiatives at other institutions.
Memorialization
In September 2014, the university erected a memorial acknowledging the institution's connection to the transatlantic slave trade and commemorating the Africans and African Americans, both enslaved and free, who contributed to the university’s early development. Its creation was one of the recommendations in the 2006 Slavery and Justice report.
The memorial, designed by contemporary sculptor Martin Puryear and located adjacent to University Hall, resembles a large ball and chain partially embedded in the ground.
Reparations In a 2021 vote, more than 80% of participating Brown University students supported a non-binding referendum calling for the university to pay reparations to the descendants of people enslaved by its founders and benefactors.
In April 2021, President Christina Paxson declined to commit to a policy of direct financial compensation, describing the issue as a "really complicated question."
Columbia University Columbia University (then known as King's College) was formed in 1754. By the end of the Civil War, ten men had served as president of the school; of those, at least half were slave-owners, as were the first four treasurers of the school.
The report, Columbia University and Slavery identifies the slave owners among its first presidents: Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Moore, William Samuel Johnson, William Alexander Duer, and Frederick A. P. Barnard. Duer's family wealth derived from the transatlantic slave trade. The school does not appear to have ever owned any slaves directly. Since a 2015 course on the school's connections to slavery, Columbia has maintained a website with the findings.
Barnard College
The namesake of Barnard College, Frederick A. P. Barnard enslaved an unknown number of people, many of whose names are absent in official records. The women's college is named after him in part due to his support for coeducation of women and men.
Sometime after he began working at the University of Alabama, Barnard acquired enslaved persons. Some worked as research assistants in his labs, including one named Sam, while others served as domestic servants in his home. During his time in Alabama, Barnard also allegedly sexually abused enslaved black women, a behavior tolerated by his peers on the faculty. A list of other enslaved people associated with Barnard in Alabama included: "Little Mary", Morgan, Luna, Tom, and Johnson. Barnard described his 16 years at the University of Alabama as "some of the happiest and most fruitful years of his life".
One of the people he enslaved, Jane, was assaulted in 1859 by a student while she was working for Barnard at the University of Mississippi. Barnard, who was away at the time of the assault, sought expulsion of the offending student by the university faculty. It is unclear whether Barnard's motivation for this was retributive justice for Jane or restitution for himself after the intrusion on his home and lost labor as Jane recovered. Jane did not get justice since her testimony was not deemed credible according to Mississippi law, and the faculty did not expel her assailant. This incident created a wedge between Barnard and the rest of the university establishment, leading to his eventual departure – in which he left much of his property, including his slaves, behind.
Barnard colleagues at universities in the South, viewed him with suspicion in large part due to his Northern upbringing. Despite being a slaveowner, he was often suspected by his peers of having sympathies for the abolitionist cause. In response to claims of being an abolitionist sympathizer, Barnard continually reiterated his support for the South and for the institution of slavery. However, upon his return to the North during the Civil War, Barnard published an open letter to Abraham Lincoln in which he affirmed loyalty to the Union and defended past pro-slavery statements as necessary political strategy.
Dartmouth College Dartmouth's founder Eleazar Wheelock held at least 18 enslaved black people during his lifetime. Eight slaves accompanied Wheelock when he established Dartmouth's Hanover campus in 1770. According to Craig Wilder "there were more slaves than faculty, administrators, or active trustees; in fact, there were arguably as many enslaved black people at Dartmouth as there were students in the college course, and Wheelock's slaves outnumbered his Native American students."
Dartmouth College president Nathan Lord defended slavery in the lead up to the American Civil War, causing controversy and leading to his eventual resignation.
Georgetown University
1838 Jesuit slave sale
Founded in 1789 as a Catholic educational institution, Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) was in financial straits in 1838. The decision was taken to sell church property in the form of 272 enslaved persons owned by the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. The 1838 Jesuit slave sale generated cash, about 10% of which was used to satisfy Georgetown's debts. The slaves had lived on plantations belonging to the Jesuits in Maryland, and they were sold to Henry Johnson of Louisiana and Jesse Batey. The sale price was $115,000, . Of the $25,000 down-payment, $17,000 was used to pay down building debt that Thomas F. Mulledy, the provincial superior who orchestrated the sale, had previously accrued as Georgetown's president.
The Jesuits has a documented history at Georgetown of callousness toward enslaved persons. In 1821, Georgetown's procurator objected to the food served to the enslaved peoples who were on campus as being too expensive and generous. He wrote that the slave rations were “carried there in abundance” and called for more austere food provisions.
21st century response
National revelations of this connection were reported in a 2016 article in The New York Times by Rachel L. Swarns. In response to the revelations, Georgetown University held a service called the "Liturgy of Remembrance, Contrition and Hope." At the liturgy, Fr. Timothy Kesicki, the president of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, said, “Those 272 souls...received the same sacraments, read from the same scriptures, prayed the same prayers, sang the same hymns, and praised the same God—how did we, the Society of Jesus, fail to see us all as one body in Christ? We betrayed the very name of Jesus for whom our least Society is named.”